Sounds like the Steam Spy guy might have blinders on, staring so hard at all those numbers that he neglects to consider why the prices may have changed. Two of those games are in fact in Early Access and have recently received large updates; I don't know if Bugbear mentioned the price shift was happening, but the developer for Epistory did say on Monday that the update marked the end of their early bird pricing.

Regardless, the easy way to see if this is nefarious or just coincidental is to wait until the sale is over, see if the prices stay where they are now or go back down.

ViRGE wrote on Nov 26, 2015, 15:51:11.7mil units is really not that massive. The PS2 sold over 22mil units in its heyday. So while it's a lot of units, it's not all that impressive. The only thing that has changed from the last generation is that sales aren't split down the middle between MS and Sony; this time Sony has them all.

As mentioned, the PS4 is already beating the PS2 in terms life-to-date sales. PS2 had a 22 million year, yeah, but that was after its initial 5 months with only 1.4 mil sold and then two full years after that with 9.2 mil and 18 mil. PS4 is at 30 mil now after 24 months.

11.7 million certainly is impressive when you consider that's before the holiday shopping season has really begun. They're expecting that number will increase by half in the next 5 weeks.

Meh, the existing DLCs are pretty lame, which is why I haven't bothered picking up the Pass so far... A price increase will just make me wait even longer, or get The Following by itself and leave it at that. If it lives up to the hype at all, it could be worth $20.

Darks wrote on Nov 24, 2015, 13:52:Secondly. when you have steam there is absolutely no reason at all to have a micro-transactions when Steams has its own built in transaction store as it is. So what reason could they implement this other then trying to sidestep Values process?

Where are you getting that they're not running this through Steam? Their site mentions the Steam Market several times.

ASeven wrote on Nov 24, 2015, 13:24:The reason why people are up in arms is not the microtransactions themselves but the timing of them, presented during early access while the game has developed damn slowly, with only 2 major content updates. It is fucking tasteless to announce microtransactions while the game is nowhere near completion, with a lot of promised classes, perks, guns and maps still not in the game. Had they announced this after the game was complete then I don't think the furor would be as great, but doing this while the game is still very much incomplete reeks of greediness and sheer stupidity.

Is it greed to implement a feature expressly designed to further empower the modding community, in the vein of Valve's player-created content shops for TF2, Dota 2, CS:GO, etc.? And regardless, does such a feature not also need to be tested and iterated upon as much as anything else they add to the game, hence the Early Access period being appropriate for its deployment? If it's content you want from them, why do you disagree with their efforts to offload the creation of cosmetics to the community?

It amuses me that so many sites are passing this around as if it's a big shocker... I think the real news here is the implication that some people expected the head of Bethesda PR to say anything different. "Yeah, sure, guys, go ahead and dick around with our dev commands as much as you want, we'd LOVE to help you fix your games that were broken through no fault of our own. That is the most effective way for our support staff to spend their time, after all!"

ZED-conomy, like TF2's Mann-conomy... Not just cosmetics, but player-created cosmetics, at that. People are just retarded, looking for any excuse to exercise their phony outrage, because in the age of social media they feel empowered by their whining. Companies have brought it on themselves, by positively-reinforcing these little bitchfests repeatedly over the last several years.

I wanted to like this game, but try as I might... Isn't the main mechanic defending mining equipment while waves of enemies attack?

Thumping was pretty much the only thing to do back in the day, yeah, but in the past couple years they've added a ton of other content. New zones with some pretty epic cooperative events, story quests, randomly-generated hub quests, instanced raid-like missions... But Paco is more or less correct, they've completely redesigned character progression so many times that veteran players were alienated and new players were utterly confused.

The game had so much potential, but mismanagement and office drama crippled development, and by the time they sort of got their shit together, it was too late, they missed their opportunity.

They should integrate NS2: Combat, it was a mistake not having that mode at launch and it was a BIG mistake spinning it off into a standalone game (which flopped pretty hard, sadly). Let all NS2 owners have it for free and the people who bought it separately can have a unique skin or something.

Creston wrote on Nov 22, 2015, 17:23:I never saw the third Riddick on account of people saying it was basically "pitch black reloaded." (I would have gladly gone to see another movie about the Necromongers.)

Anyone here see it? I thought it bombed too, so to see a fourth one being made seems strange.

It was pretty good. I liked Katee Sackoff in it - she plays a great smartass. I too was really hoping they were going to carry the Underverse story forward as it would have been hella interesting. The third one is almost a slap in the face. Wait a second, so Riddick goes from emperor of the most powerful force in the galaxy back to square one without explanation. The whole Underverse concept is an interesting one. Anyway just watch it already.

Were you busy making popcorn for the first part of it? From the last film, you know Riddick doesn't give a shit about the Necromongers, he doesn't want to be their leader, and everyone there hates him anyway. The setup for the sequel is he decides to give it up and go off to look for his home world. The only weird part is why he waited five years to do it. Events transpire and BAM, stranded on another desolate rock.

They took a chance with that plot, for sure. FO3 is more relate-able, everyone has a dad, but if you're not a parent IRL it's hard[er] to care about a virtual baby.

I haven't quite finished the game yet on my first playthrough, but I started another guy with whom I'm being more sneaky-sneak than barging in with power armor... Already found several meaty quests I missed the first time, even when the map had been about 75% explored. Fantastic game.

It is easy to get lost in the exploration in the beginning. I've played for an obscene amount of time in the past week, just reached level 47 last night, and I've barely touched the story. But just two of those missions after reaching Diamond City, and holy shit, the entire landscape has changed... You'll know what I mean when you get there.

Since when is utilizing a primary mechanic of the game (crafting) considered "gaming the game?" I will grant you they should mention in the perk description that shotguns are grouped in with rifles (different perks for single-shot and automatic), but otherwise all of that stuff is pretty straightforward.

Say you take a pipe gun; with a pistol grip and short barrel it is meant for close range hip-firing, but put a long barrel on it and it is then less accurate when fired from the hip but has a longer range and is more accurate when aiming down the sights. Put a stock on it and it turns into a rifle, which has better recoil control but even worse hip-firing accuracy. Put a scope on it and it's a sniper rifle, with more sighted accuracy and longer range. Upgrade the receiver (possibly to a larger-caliber bullet) and you increase the damage. Single-shot does more damage, or you can turn it into an automatic for higher rate of fire with less damage per shot.

You control all of these things, every aspect of your weapon. Use a proper one for the way you want to fight and you won't have an issue with being effective in combat. But no matter what, upgrade to something better than a pipe gun ASAP, lol, 'cause they're meant to be crap. Hunting rifles can be found pretty early on, and they last a long time, eventually able to be upgraded to .50 cal.

As for Strength-based characters, melee is really not a one-size-fits-all combat solution. You're gonna need to be super tanky and creative in how you approach situations, and even then you're not going to be as effective as you might like until you fill out that side of the perk tree. The 'Rooted' perk opens up a stick-and-move playstyle that should make you near-unstoppable when you use it correctly, but you're still going to need backup weapons for some threats, like those rooftop snipers. You get the perk to improve heavy weapons, which is a class that encompasses a wide variety of ranged attacks, so I'm sure you'll find something you like.

Fallen Enchantress is a solid fantasy RPG version of Civ, with quests and leveling heroes and turn-based combat (or you can just auto-resolve). The first incarnation of the game, Elemental: War of Magic, was pretty bad, but they took a lot of feedback and turned out this respectable "sequel."